Hammett

by Joe Gores

  ‘They were executed for not delivering me,’ said Crystal in a tight, terrified voice.

  ‘I could buy that except for one thing.’ Hammett leaned back against the garish flowers painted on his chair. His eyes burned and he was yawning with fatigue, but otherwise he felt all right. ‘If they expected hired killers from back east to be looking for you, why’d they hang around to be found?’

  ‘You do not believe what I have told you?’

  He made angry gestures with hands, eyebrows, mouth. ‘Quit clowning around, Crystal. Too many people are dying. Who’s after you, and why?’

  ‘But I cannot tell anyone, ever, because-’

  ‘I’ve had enough of this.’

  He was on his feet, hurling his cigarette across the room against the radiator. It fell to the floor in a shower of sparks. As he picked up his hat and coat from the dresser, he ground it into the rug with his heel. Crystal was off the bed to catch his hand in both of hers and try to kiss his fingertips. He jerked his hand away. She started to cry.

  ‘It’s a nice act.’ Hammett sneered.

  He watched her wipe her face on her sleeve. ‘I must tell it in my own way.’

  ‘Just so you tell it.’

  When she had fled Capone’s Harlem Inn in Stickney, she had hidden in Chicago’s Chinatown for several weeks, until her cash had run out. Then she had gotten a job as a domestic in a rooming house on North State Street. She held it for over two years.

  ‘Mrs Rotariu was very nice. She called me Crystal and let me call her Anna even though I merely worked for her. The house was owned by a famous author named Keller or something-’

  ‘Harry Stephen Keeler?’

  ‘You know of him?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘I’ve read some of his stuff.’ Hammett’s voice was flat, and a tense, wary look had entered his eyes.

  Crystal went on with her story. Early in October, 1926, a very pleasant young man calling himself Oscar Lundin had taken the back second-floor room that had been Keeler’s studio. Then one of the front rooms overlooking State Street had become vacant, and he had taken it even though it was much smaller and cheaper, with worn-out furniture.

  ‘Just two wooden chairs and a dresser and an old brass-frame bed and a gas ring,’ said Crystal with her eyes far away. ‘The day he switched rooms he paid a week’s rent on the new one, and then walked out and didn’t come back. The next day two men who’d visited him once before moved in.’

  Two days later Crystal had just started down the back stairway to the alley after she had finished work, about four o’clock, when there was a tremendous racket from the front of the building.

  ‘It sounded like many auto backfires very close together, with a heavier, sort of booming sound, too. Then it stopped and the door of Mr Lundin’s room flew open and the two men ran out.’

  The man in front was about twenty-five and carried a tommy gun. The second man was heavily built, and dark, and had a shotgun. She was slammed up against the wall by the man with the tommy gun. The second man ran by her, then a dozen steps below her stopped and said, ‘Hey!’

  ‘That was when I saw his face clearly for the first time.’ Her hands were twisting in her lap like warring animals. ‘Twice I had seen him out at the Harlem Inn. He…’ Her cheeks began to burn. ‘Both times he… used me. He did not pay like the others.’

  ‘And he recognized you on the stairs.’

  ‘Yes. He pointed the shotgun at me and pulled the triggers, first one and then the other. I heard two clicks. He cursed and turned around and ran after the first man. They climbed out the ground-floor window into the alley.’

  She had run to her cheap Chinatown rooming house, got her money from under the mattress, and caught the first train leaving Chicago. It was going to Minneapolis so that was where she went. She stayed there until one icy night a car tried to run her down. She went to Detroit. The restaurant where she worked as a waitress was bombed when she should have been there, but had been off sick. She finally returned to San Francisco where the mob had few connections, and went to work for Molly as a maid.

  ‘And you never knew what happened in the rooming house. Was it right across State Street from Holy Name Cathedral?’

  Crystal shrugged. ‘There was a church there. I do not know what it was called.’

  ‘Sure not. But you recognized the man on the stairs. Was it the man who owned the Harlem Inn? The one they call Big Al?’

  She said, barely above a whisper, ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Scarface himself,’ said Hammett. ‘No wonder they keep trying to kill you! You saw him thirty seconds after Hymie Weiss was rubbed out in front of his headquarters at 738 North State Street. You can finger Al Capone for murder!’

  28

  H ammett lit his fifth cigarette of the day and flopped open the newspaper that Moms had slammed down on the counter in front of him. His hand stopped moving with his first cup of coffee halfway to his mouth.

  BOOTLEGGER SHOT — GUNNED ON STREET WHILE LEAVING SPEAKEASY

  Gunfire rocked the foot of Mission Street last night. Dominic Pronzini, 32, owner of the Cote d’Or Club (popularly known as Dom’s Dump), died in the 3 A.M. blasts by an unknown assassin.

  He was skipping down the story when his eyes were caught by a boldface box announcement.

  LATE DEVELOPMENT

  Mayor Brendan McKenna has called a meeting of press reporters at 10 o’clock this morning for what his office termed ‘an important announcement.’

  ‘They’re trying to bring their gang warfare to San Francisco,’ thundered McKenna in his marvelous orator’s voice. ‘Well, gentlemen, I’m here to tell you it isn’t going to succeed!’

  The red-carpeted reception room was jammed with reporters crowding the mayor’s huge cherry-wood desk. Hammett hung back on the fringes. He’d tried to get Jimmy Wright at the Townsend Hotel and had failed; it was a good bet he’d be here to listen to the mayor.

  ‘Are you stating as a fact, Mr Mayor,’ demanded a reporter from the Examiner, ‘that Dominic Pronzini’s death was a gangland slaying?’

  ‘Both the district attorney and I feel this is the case.’ McKenna began dramatically marking off his points with his fingers. ‘Dominic Pronzini was murdered with a shotgun. The shotgun is a classical gangland weapon. Less than twenty-four hours ago, a woman and her son were murdered up in Marin County with a shotgun. Less than two weeks ago, a rumrunner in Dominic Pronzini’s employ, named Egan Tokzek, was slain in a gun battle with police. That woman murdered in Marin was’ — he paused to tighten the suspense — ‘Egan Tokzek’s sister, gentlemen.’

  The newsmen began frantically scribbling in their notebooks. Hammett felt his sleeve tugged. He and the fat little op, Jimmy Wright, worked their way from the crowd toward the door. Behind them, McKenna was overriding the reporters’ questions.

  Hammett closed the door on the oratory. He and Wright had the hallway to themselves.

  ‘Your little plot didn’t come off too well,’ said the op.

  ‘It worked in my story.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked thoughtfully at Hammett. ‘Only this ain’t a story.’

  But Hammett had realized there was an ill-concealed excitement in the stocky detective which owed nothing to the botched events on the other side of the Golden Gate.

  ‘You’ve got something else for me?’

  ‘Boyd Mulligan made some calls after you left his office.’

  ‘Gimme,’ said Hammett.

  Owen Lynch was dressed in a conservative three-button silk-stripe worsted with a white neckband shirt and a fresh dressy Norfolk collar. The links of his gold watch chain glittered across his vest.

  ‘I gather you don’t think much of Bren’s theory concerning the killings.’

  ‘It stinks. Better get him in here, so I only have to say it once,’ said Hammett.

  He smoked quietly in his chair after Lynch departed, his face keeping his secrets.

  McKenna came through the door first, his jaw rather belligerent and his brea
th rich with brandy. Only his eyes betrayed the anxiety apparent in the worried face of Lynch behind him.

  ‘Hammett,’ said the mayor coolly.

  The detective stood up.

  The mayor said, ‘I understand you disagree with me about the mobs trying to move into our city.’

  ‘I don’t. The facts do. When I talked with Molly Farr last Sunday, I was convinced that-’

  ‘Molly Farr! But she… the DA is looking all over for…’

  ‘He’s looking. I found.’ Hammett stopped at an ashtray to stub out his cigarette butt. He rousted his pockets for the pack, and stuck a new one, unlit, in his mouth. ‘I’m not saying just where because I know my investigators aren’t going to get any cooperation at all from the police department, only as much cooperation from the DA as the reform committee can pressure him into giving, and exactly as much backing from this office as it cares to give. Therefore-’

  ‘I told you we were with you all the way on this investigation.’

  Hammett jerked a thumb at the mayor. ‘Did you tell him?’

  He went on before either man could speak.

  ‘Those highbinders who busted up Pronzini’s place were my boys — which shoots hell out of part of your gangster scenario, Mr Mayor.’ Hammett’s grin was tight, almost unpleasant. ‘They scared Pronzini enough so he spilled some things. Enough so I now believe Vic died in Pronzini’s back room, and that the man who killed him went there through the Mulligans. So I threw a scare into Boyd-’

  ‘What good would that do?’ asked Lynch.

  ‘Jimmy Wright’s boys now have a tap on the Mulligan phone. Griff would be smart enough to expect this, but not Boyd. I wanted to see who he called for help when his uncle wasn’t around. In light of the fact that Pronzini was rubbed last night, that phone call gets damned important.’

  He paused to light a cigarette. The pause grew. McKenna tossed off his brandy in a single convulsive gesture. Hammett handed to Lynch the transcript carbon Jimmy Wright had given him.

  June 5, 1:04 p.m. — Out — Mulligan Bros. Boyd Mulligan.

  WOMAN: Hello?

  BOYD: Hello? Is your husband there?

  WOMAN: No. I’m sorry…

  BOYD: At work?

  WOMAN: Yes. Is there any message?

  BOYD: No. No message. I’ll catch him there.

  June 5, 1:09 p.m. — Out — Mulligan Bros. Boyd Mulligan.

  MAN: Detective Bureau.

  BOYD: (voice muffled): Is the Preacher there?

  MAN: Huh?

  BOYD: (voice clearer): The Preacher. Is he there?

  MAN: Oh. Wait a sec. I’ll see.

  LAVERTY: Hello?

  BOYD: Boyd Mulligan, Preacher. I want to see you.

  LAVERY: There’s only one place I want to see you, Mulligan. Looking out from behind bars…

  BOYD: I know all about the way Parelli really died.

  LAVERTY (after a long pause): Griff told me that’d never be used. He said he didn’t blame me for…

  BOYD: It won’t be used, Preacher. If you help me.

  LAVERTY: (after a long pause): All right. West Broadway by the Presidio wall. Twenty minutes.

  Lynch folded the paper with exaggerated care, making sure all the creases were sharp and square.

  Hammett asked, ‘Who was Parelli?’

  Lynch looked up, his face dazed. ‘A cheap hood found beaten to death in Jessie Street a few years ago. Pistolwhipped. A young girl claimed he’d been molesting her, trying to drag her into his apartment building when another man stopped him. He ran. The second man caught him and systematically beat him to death. First she said she would never forget the second man’s face, then said she had forgotten it. Then she left town.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hammett softly. ‘If Mulligan got her to change her story and then got her to leave…’

  ‘Dan’s always had that black Irish temper. If it got away from him then the way it did with that Egan Tokzek-’

  ‘I think he came around to tell me about it a couple of days ago,’ said Hammett. ‘After his talk with Boyd Mulligan. He was waiting outside my apartment building to talk to me, only he couldn’t bring himself to say it. He knew I’d brought in the hatchet men to wreck Pronzini’s joint, and he knew why I did it. Only Mulligan could have told him those things. I think Mulligan wanted him to pry out of me how much I really knew, and I think he wouldn’t play along. But you can see why I have to know where he was the night Vic was killed, and where he was last night when Pronzini got it.’

  ‘You can’t think that Preacher would-’

  Hammett jerked his shoulders irritably at Lynch.

  ‘I’m not saying I think he did anything, I’m saying I have to find out. If he had something to do with Vic’s death, then he might have killed Pronzini to protect himself. Or if the Mulligans do have their claws into him, he might have killed Pronzini because they forced him into it.’

  McKenna spoke for the first time since reading the transcript. ‘But what about the woman and her son up in Marin? What sort of threat could they pose to Dan Laverty?’

  ‘I don’t know. But there’s a lot I don’t know. Why was he out south of the park the night Tokzek was killed? Why did he chase-’

  ‘That I can tell you, at least.’ Lynch massaged his eyelids with blunt fingers. ‘Dan got a phone call, at home, telling him that in a few minutes a stolen car would be-’

  ‘There!’ exclaimed McKenna triumphantly. ‘That proves-’

  ‘Nothing at all, Bren,’ said his secretary in a tired voice. ‘It’s only what Dan told me himself. There’s no corroboration.’

  ‘Merciful God in heaven!’ burst out McKenna. He was at the sideboard again, his features pinched and drawn.

  Lynch’s eyes were losing their dazed look, as if his mind had begun to function once more concerning the political realities.

  ‘You’re willing to let us handle this for the moment?’

  ‘I told Jimmy Wright to put a tail on Laverty.’

  McKenna began, ‘That isn’t necessary-’

  ‘I think it is. But I’m willing to lay back apart from that. For the moment. But if I don’t get the answers I need — straight answers, and quick — I’m going to the grand jury with what I’ve got so they can ask the questions.’

  29

  At this time on a sunny day, Hammett was pretty sure where he’d find Pop Daneri, and he did. The old man was basking in the sun like a turtle on the minuscule open landing that overlooked the Weller Hotel’s enclosed court. The door was open behind him so he could hear the sound of the buzzer if anyone came in off Post Street.

  ‘Was she able to identify anyone?’

  Hammett took the old man’s arm, not gently. ‘Who?’

  ‘The Chinese girl. Identify the pictures of the Chicago-’

  ‘Oh, goddammit anyway!’ exclaimed Hammett.

  There was sudden anguish in the old man’s voice. ‘He was… from the Treasury Department of the United States government. He.. ’ His voice faltered. ‘He had a… a badge and everything. Said you’d given him the address. He took her away with him…’

  ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Three o’clock this morning. I was still up. He rang the bell, came up, showed me that badge…’ The old man said softly, ‘He was a ringer, wasn’t he, Sam?’

  Hammett merely nodded, frowning in thought. Nearly nine hours before. An impossibly cold trail. He could mobilize the men under Jimmy Wright’s command, but as for the police…

  Hell, any one of them — particularly Dan Laverty — could have been the one who came and got her. The only cop he really trusted was Jack Manion…

  The old man’s face had changed. His eyes had gone dull, as if something opaque had been drawn across them. He doubled up his fist and struck himself in the face with it.

  ‘Cut it out,’ growled Hammett.

  The old man hit himself again. His brass shell-casing ring gashed his cheek. Blood trickled down his face.

  ‘Stupid!’ cried the old man. ‘W
orthless! The oldest trick in the book and-’

  ‘Cut it out, Pop,’ said Hammett again. ‘You were taken by experts, they’d know how you feel about the government, how you’d respect a man from the Treasury Department. What bothers me is how they knew where she…’ He broke off. Comprehension flooded his face, tightening the lean features. ‘The goddamn phone call!’ he burst out softly.

  He looked over at the old man. Pop had a handkerchief pressed against the purple-lipped cut on his cheek.

  ‘Were you in the room with her when she called her parents?’

  ‘In the next room. But, Sam-’

  ‘Could you hear what she was saying? Did she tell them anything about where she was?’

  ‘Couldn’t hear words, just her voice.’

  ‘English or Chinese? The cadence and tenor would be different, even through a wall.’

  The old eyes, more alive now, sought backward through memory. ‘English.’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said softly. ‘Could you identify the guy who took her again?’

  ‘ Big man,’ said Pop. ‘Tall, bulky, hat and overcoat…’ Chagrin entered the eyes. ‘Now I remember, kept his scarf up around the bottom half of his face, casual like…’

  ‘Silk scarf? Wool?’

  ‘Silk.’

  Hammett squeezed the old man’s thin upper arm. ‘Okay, Pop, keep safe. He doesn’t know you can’t identify him.’

  Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the dusty windows of Hammett’s apartment to lay a cool pale oblong on the rug. Summer fog, rolling silent and gray through the Golden Gate and across the western rim of the city, soon would blot it out.

  Jimmy Wright was annihilating a Fatima in Hammett’s ancient Coxwell. His round tough sleepy face was placid, almost stupid with thought.

  Hammett was on his feet as usual, prowling from hallway to window, throwing questions and remarks and comments as he did. He hadn’t shaved and his shirt was open to show the top two buttons of his balbriggan undershirt. A lock of hair hung down across his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot. From the kitchen came the plock-plock-plock of his Challenge electric percolator.